


Contemporaries

by StopTalkingAtMe



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Ficlet, Implied Travis/Servalan, Missing Scene, Set between Gambit and The Keeper, brief sexual references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26082796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/pseuds/StopTalkingAtMe
Summary: Jarriere isn't quite as stupid as he might first seem.
Relationships: Travis/Jarriere
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Contemporaries

“He probably won’t be too happy to see you,” Servalan had warned, shortly before Jarriere left Space Command headquarters. They were words which struck him now, pressed as he was face-first against a wall in a dark alley with the blunt muzzle of a handgun wedged against the base of his skull and an arm clamped around his throat, as something of an understatement. Travis, former space commander, current outlaw, and occasional ally of the terrifying and glorious woman to whom Jarriere’s star seemed to have been yoked no matter what he had to say in the matter, was very definitely not happy to see him. Quite the opposite in fact.

“Where is Servalan?” He punctuated each word by jabbing the handgun into Jarriere’s head.

“She couldn’t make it,” he managed, reaching up to pull the arm down just a little so that he could breathe. Another emphatic jab from the handgun warned him off. He prickled a little at the indignity of it. Not so long ago, he’d seen this very man dazed from a beating and lying on the silken covers of a bed suspended from the ceiling, snarling up at the Supreme Commander whilst apparently completely unaware that her hand was clasped warmly over his. Yet another nest of snakes Jarriere wanted _absolutely nothing_ to do with; whatever the hell was going on between Servalan and his predecessor it was better to steer well clear of it. “She sends her apologies, Space Command business, you know how it is. She’s a busy woman.”

“My message was clear,” Travis growled. “I'll only speak to her.”

“I act with her full authority,” Jarriere said, trying to fill his voice with said authority, which was somewhat tricky when the arm clamped around his throat was cutting off most of his air. “Whatever you have to say to her, you can say to me.”

“Whatever I have to say to her, I will say to _her_. Unless she wants Blake to find Star One before she does.”

“Star One?”

Travis scoffed. “She didn’t even tell you that?”

She might very well have done. Jarriere knew better than to listen too hard to anything the Supreme Commander told him, and when he did listen, he was very careful about which parts it might be expedient to conveniently forget. He shrugged.

Travis snarled in disgust. He released Jarriere, but only gave him long enough to turn around, before Travis gripped his taupe moleskin shirt front and slammed him back against the wall again, brandishing the handgun. Revenge, maybe, for Jarriere training a gun on him back on Freedom City, but Jarriere wasn’t quite so easily intimidated as all that; he wore the armour of the inveterate idiot, and when he chose he was quite capable of seeming utterly oblivious to the danger he was in. It was a handy trick.

“I see you got your arm working again,” he said. “I’m very glad. You know she never did actually arm that grenade.”

“So it was Servalan who planted it,” Travis said grimly. “I wish I could say I was surprised.”

“It was a ruse of the Supreme Commander’s. I’m afraid I didn’t understand a word of it, but it was all very clever.”

“Yes, that’s Servalan. She doesn’t often make mistakes. Except for this one.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

The handgun jabbed against his chest. “Sending you instead of coming herself.”

“Oh.”

Travis eyed him. “Maybe I should just kill you,” he said, his voice dangerous. “Send her the message that I’m not to be underestimated.”

And that, Jarriere thought, was one of the differences between them, this belief Travis held that being underestimated by the Supreme Commander was somehow a _bad_ thing despite all the evidence to the contrary. He’d learned a great many things from Travis over the years, and one of them was what a blessing it was to be chronically underestimated. As far as Jarriere was concerned, the delightful Supreme Commander was more than welcome to underestimate him until the cows came home. He could probably lead a very pleasant life living up to her underwhelming expectations, and never once making the mistake of trying to exceed them.

He remembered Travis all too well from his time as a cadet, although that was one of the things he’d judged it might be better to forget in case Servalan suspected him of getting ideas. Everyone had known Space Commander Travis. His reputation had preceded him, both good and bad, but what Jarriere remembered specifically was how the higher you rose, the further you had to fall, the more inevitable it was that you _would_ fall, and the harder you’d hit the ground when you did.

Despite appearances to the contrary, Jarriere was a fast learner. His family connections had made a place in the FSA and a fast-track to officerville all but inevitable, but he’d learned very quickly the art of learned incompetence and when to apply it. He was a pretty good shot, and had been even before he’d become a cadet, thanks to all the practice he’d had stalking deer in his family’s climate-controlled dome, but his main skills were primarily in the fields of being charming and looking pretty. Those he’d got honed to a fine art. He was, in short, the ideal staff man (by his standards at least): pleasant, forgettable, and quite happy to disappoint his parents and remain entirely mediocre.

“I don’t think the Supreme Commander would like that,” he said.

“The Supreme Commander isn’t here.”

“No, she isn’t, is she?” he said slowly, and let his eyes flit down to the muzzle of the gun for the first time. “Um.”

Travis stared at Jarriere with a hard glint of anger in his eye. He looked, if anything, even scruffier than he had in Freedom City, with a couple of days worth of stubble growing in, and when he smiled unexpectedly, the effect was terrifying. So unnerving that even the holstering of his gun didn’t come as much of a reassurance. “We got off on the wrong foot,” he said.

“Did we?”

That smile didn’t show any signs of going away. It involved teeth and a quiet air of menace biding its time. “Let’s get a drink,” Travis said, and Jarriere rubbed the developing bruise on his chest with a sinking feeling.

* * *

The bed was a long way from the silken luxury of Freedom City, but by some small mercy at least it wasn’t suspended from the ceiling. Jarriere lay on the grimy sheets, hungover and naked and sore, while Travis dressed. He’d been pretty rough, which he had contemptuously claimed was an integral part of the message he wanted Jarriere to pass onto Servalan: just to make certain she knew Travis wasn’t going to be her willing underling any more. Jarriere thought he’d better somewhat soften that particular part of the message in the retelling.

Travis pulled his shirt over his head then knelt on the bed and gripped Jarriere by the jaw. “Now listen to me. I’m going to give Servalan one last chance, for old time’s sake.” He smiled mirthlessly. “I’m not quite as out of options as she thinks, so she’d better start seeing me as an equal. You tell her that.”

“I will,” Jarriere said, wondering what had led Travis to think that, of all the things the Supreme Commander might want or even just tolerate, an ambitious _equal_ could possibly be one of them.

Travis patted his cheek and stood. “I’ll be waiting for her on Goth,” he said, moving towards the door.

“Goth. Right. Yes, I’ll be sure to let her know.” Jarriere scratched his neck. “You mean the planet?”

Travis stopped and stared at him. “You really are an idiot,” he said with an air of disbelief.

Jarriere smiled ruefully and spread his hands. “Guilty as charged.” He waited until Travis had left before dropping back onto the bed. “And yet somehow,” he added wearily, “I’m still smarter than you.”


End file.
